1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to telecommunications services. More particularly, the present invention relates to capabilities that enhance substantially the value and usefulness of various wireless messaging paradigms (including, inter alia, Multimedia Message Service [MMS]) through the generation of, and the subsequent comprehensive management of, key user feedback.
2. Background of the Invention
As the ‘wireless revolution’ continues to march forward the ability of a Mobile Subscriber (MS), for example a user of a Wireless Device (WD) such as a mobile telephone, BlackBerry, etc. that is serviced by a Wireless Carrier (WC), to fully and completely utilize services such as MMS within a truly ubiquitous cross-carrier environment grows in importance while, simultaneously, the challenges that are associated with same similarly increase.
The present invention facilitates aspects of such utilization and addresses various of the challenges that are associated with same.
(The discussion below employs the specific wireless messaging paradigm MMS. However, it is to be understood that it would be readily apparent to one of ordinary skill in the relevant art that other messaging, etc. paradigms are easily possible and indeed are fully within the scope of the present invention.)
MMS has been deployed worldwide since 2000 primarily for Peer-to-Peer (P2P) messaging. However, MMS may also be used as a delivery mechanism for rich media content (including, inter alia, images, audio clips, video clips, text, ringtones, etc. or combinations of same) that may be directed to a user's WD under an Application-to-Peer (A2P) messaging model.
Users may request such rich content through a variety of methods including, inter alia, visiting a World Wide Web (WWW) site, visiting a mobile web site (e.g., a Wireless Application Protocol [WAP] site), sending a Short Message Service (SMS) message (to a Short Code [SC] or to a long code or to a Telephone Number [TN] or to etc.), calling a voice or Interactive Voice Response (IVR) enabled TN, etc. These methods, as well as others, may be used to initiate the sending of rich media content to a user's WD.
Reference is made to pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/742,764, entitled “UNIVERSAL SHORT CODE ADMINISTRATION FACILITY,” for a description of various of the advantages (e.g., abbreviated length, such as five digits for a SC administered by Neustar under the Common Short Code [CSC] program) and challenges (e.g., management, etc.) that are associated with SCs.
After it has been requested, rich media may be delivered to a WD through a number of different channels including, inter alia:
WAP Push. Under this model a mobile web Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is ‘pushed’ (i.e., sent) to the device using SMS delivery. The device user manually accesses the URL to download the content to the WD.
MMS. MMS content delivery is quite similar to P2P delivery in that the rich media is delivered to the device embedded in an MMS message. Using this method, the rich content may be presented in a wide variety of ways such as a mix of images, text, video clips, etc. For example, a user may subscribe to a news service that provides headlines and story summaries of the day's news. The presentation of this content might consist of “headline” text, a short summary with daily images and video clips, etc.—all formatted (as appropriate and as required) to fit the possibly smaller screen of a WD and all presented in a pleasing and easy layout (e.g., like a WWw page). This type of content delivery is not available using WAP push but is very well suited for MMS delivery.
For discrete content such as individual images, ringtones, audio clips or even videos, MMS is an attractive delivery vehicle. The media may be delivered as an attachment to the message or potentially embedded in the message. WDs may have the ability to save (and potentially process) any media embedded in an MMS message—for example, to save a ringtone that was delivered in the message.
One of the key elements of a MMS-based delivery scenario is the user's WD—i.e., e.g., it must support MMS. Many WDs support the ability to download ringtones, wall-papers, images, and other rich media, but do not have the ability to receive such content via MMS. Therefore, the originator of the content—e.g., a Content Provider (CP)—must preferably have the ability to qualify a user's device prior to completing a content transaction.
Unfortunately, the content delivery protocol for MMS—called MM7—does not have the ability to provide end-user device information. Consequently a CP, or any other similarly situated entity, is faced with a significant challenge. For example, a CP might maintain an extensive database of WD information in order to make the determination that a particular device will support MMS delivery. In order to obtain this data a CP must, among numerous other tasks, query each potential user as to their WD make and model as part of, for example, a registration, validation, etc. process. Such a repository would clearly be challenging to establish and difficult to keep current (with, e.g., an up-to-date list of WD capabilities from all device manufacturers). Consequently, the ability to maintain a comprehensive repository of user pre-qualification information is difficult at best.
In the worst case (and, indeed, in many cases) a user may select content to be sent to their WD, complete the transaction, wait for the content to be delivered to their device, but nothing arrives. A CP, or any other similarly situated entity, or the user's WC is then faced with a frustrated user and additional customer support costs.
Additionally, the user, having received no feedback, may be reluctant to utilize the CP or WC for any further transactions.
Thus there is a need for improved systems, methods and mechanisms that facilitate the passing of, e.g., MMS messages to an end user, and that provide a better overall experience to that end user.